Assuming you want to keep your face out of it, headless torso shots work for me... or turn your head so that it's partly shadowed or not full-on to the camera to conceal your identity. Show off the body. Use pics that give a viewer at least a generalized idea of what you look like.

If you want to show cock, make sure it's attached to the rest of your body in the pic, and not just a medical close up from multiple angles. I think that's the turn off to a lot of women. It's nice to see the full package - not just a disembodied appendage.

I was just trying to find a way to say the same thing.

If you don't want a picture of you, then what about something that interests you or something that you like. Anything that shows some personality and gives us an insight into the person behind the picture.

This thread is for people new to this lifestyle, those who just want to learn more about it and, hopefully, help those who have the wrong view of it to understand better.

I welcome any dom/mes and subs to give their own views on things as well, and also for anyone to ask any questions you may have, I or another member will try to answer them.

To begin with, I'll try to dispel some wrong views people have about BDSM.

1. Being part of BDSM is not a mental problem, it is a lifestyle choice that people enjoy and does NOT mean there is anything wrong with them.

2. A very important point is everything done in BDSM should be safe and consensual. Anyone involved must be aware and agree to what they want to happen and must be safe about how they go about it.

3. It is not only about pain, the letters stand for (Bondage and Discipline) (Domination and Submission) (Sadism) and (Masochism), while some may enjoy pain, this is only part of BDSM and is not done by all, from most I know, those that do enjoy pleasure through pain is actually the minority of the group.

3.1. I should add here, pain may be used as part of punishments if a sub breaks their rules, a Dom/me will usually not enjoy having to really punish their sub, but it is necessary, but is NOT the only thing the relationship is about.

4. ALWAYS respect and abide by the rules given to a sub by their Dom/me, NEVER ask them to break these rules, and especially NEVER ask them to leave their Dom/me, that is just wrong and if you do, the Dom/me is perfectly in their right to warn you off and tell their sub to never speak to you again, and will likely give your name to other Dom/mes and subs to warn them as well, we in the lifestyle look out for each other.

5. Unless a sub is your sub, or you have express permission from the sub if they are unowned or a subs Dom/me if they are, you should NEVER try to dominate or try to play with them, it will not be received well. And if a sub is owned it is best not to ask their Dom/me to 'borrow' them as it were, almost every Dom/me will say no and may take offence.

OK educate me; explain the joys of domination or being dominated. To me it looks like some sort of ego trip to compensate for a complex of some sort I don't really have anything against it except to feel it's sort of pathetic and very English public school influenced. :)

Try the BDSM 101 sticky thread in this section of the forum. There's lots of information there for you to read through.

I could explain the joys of being dominated, but so many others can do it more eloquently than I. There are plenty of stories on this site to give an insight into the lifestyle, plenty of threads on the forum discussing it and there are lots of websites with plenty of information.

Yes, like that. Don't let the bad things stop you from enjoying the good things.

Life is hard, bad things happen and sometimes people are shit and make you question why you even bothered trying or hoping for better in the first place. Then there are the people who give you hope, sometimes it's as simple as a thank you, or a smile, or saying something kind when you least expect it, someone making you smile.

We all go through hard times, when something bad happen you're not alone. And when good things happen, it's even better to have someone to celebrate it with.

For me, the ultimate compliment is someone enjoying my story so much that they favourite it, so they can come back to it over and over again, even better if they also decide to follow you as an author based on that story!

If you were my ex, I wouldn't want you in a relationship with ANYONE in my family be it my mother, sister, father, or aunt Sally. I would want to you out of my life. Go pick on someone else's gene pool.

Feminism, society turned against men by feminists, attacks against masculinity by feminists, legal and social persecution and oppression by feminists.

supposedly we have slightly less contrastive vision than girls, it seems we have to do everything that a girl doesn't want to do b/c they'll whine about getting their shirts dirty or their nail polish from chipping imo, no offense. most importantly if you get kicked in the groin, it hurts A LOT.

-Even when abdominal fat is more active and can be gone sooner, it is risky for the cardiovascular system.-For most men: having a high sex drive.-Misandry is accepted and encouraged in today's society.-On average; more body hair-Higher risk of suffering genetic allopecia.-There's no benefit in marriage for men at all

There are pratically no pros to being a man. If you are a man then you get to be unemployed at twice the rate as women, you get to make 15% of domestic spending decisions, you can lose your kids and go to jail if you can't pay your exhorbitant child support judgment, you can be accused of rape at the drop of a hat (and your false accuser never, ever goes to jail for the lie ), and you get to be a part of a culture that generally treats men as moronic clowns. And you are far less likely to earn a college degree than a woman.

So for men, the advantage is physical strength. Women get all of the other advantages.

+And men don't get periods, sure. But we live shorter lives (and yet get less health research funding) and thus collect fewer retirement benefits, even though we pay the same taxes.

- being seen as disposable & expendable in society, your feelings & emotions do not matter.

Pros of being a girl

Low libido and zero interest in the opposite sexcan wear whatever they wantcan cry without being called namesNo accountability, everything is the man's faultMore funding for women's health then menLabel ''The Fairer Sex''Less Body haircan get away with almost anything, including homicide, Statutory rape ,child molestation,abuse,false rape accusations,domestic violences ( no not saying any of it is a good thing,just that when men do they should be punish to the full extent of the law, so should women) If arrested get a lighter jail/prison sentences then a man would both sexes generally tend to treat women in a more positive wayLive longer, don't have to do as much physical labor, have lots of options, automatically have the upper hand in divorce and custody cases (not saying that's a good thing, but it's the truth).

In the UK a woman was sent to prison, not for falsely making a claim of rape, but for falsely retracting a rape claim. Her husband was violent and abusive, she still had contact with him and his family after she had made her claims to the police and he and his sister harassed and bullied her until she retracted her statement, and even though the court fully accepted that she was the victim of abuse and had been raped, she was still put on trial and sent to prison. Link

In this country, the UK, very few people come forward if they have been raped, it's about 5-10% and less than 7% of those will result in a conviction. They've found that the percentage of people making false claims of rape is no higher than the percentage of people making false allegations for other crimes, so the idea that a woman cries rape every time a man pisses her off is a load of rubbish. It's also very dangerous to think this way, this is why so many people are too afraid to come forward when they have been abused or assaulted, they think that no one will believe them and nothing will happen.

We live in a culture that blames women for rape, it's your fault if you've had a drink, it's your fault if you flirted with them, it's your fault if you were wearing nice clothes, it's your fault if you made eye contact with him. There was a London cabbie, John Worboys who attacked over 100 women, and the police only started to investigate the complaints after a 'respectable' woman made a claim against him, she was a new mum who had gone out with friends for the first time since she had her baby.

Women are taught to avoid being raped, rather than men being taught to not rape.

As for the second point I bolded, they found that if a man and a woman were being sentenced for a comparable crime, a woman was more likely to be given a custodial sentence, where the man may get a fine instead. The reason being that the money from the woman was seen as taking it away from her children and they didn't want them to be deprived of money for rent or food, so instead they would give her a short prison term. They didn't feel this way about the man so he would be fined and then he was free to leave.

That's the UK, not any of the countries Sprite listed where things are much, much worse.

If you think that you have it so bad as a man, come and walk a mile in our shoes.